


I see fire in your future

by Animasta



Series: The Adventures will never end [2]
Category: Adventure Time
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 08:39:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16082507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Animasta/pseuds/Animasta
Summary: Charlie was a traveling fortune teller. Mostly working in Wizard City, because they respected the art of Divination, but she went everywhere. Her business WAS the future. She was comforted by it. The sight of herself at 90, at the end of her life, just gave her a warm feeling inside. So... she wanted to see what was in store for her son, Gibbon. She was just curious, you know?But... you know what they say about curiosity.





	I see fire in your future

**Author's Note:**

> More Pups! Pups for the Pup God.

Calm down Charlie. Calm down. Father promised her that he would be back within a week, and there’s still 53 minutes left until the week is over. She isn’t in her 20’s anymore, and she can be patient. Even if he didn’t come in two more weeks, it would still be fine. It would still be fine. According to Doctor Princess, and her mother’s own experience, she’s still only a few weeks into her pregnancy.

She knew it was coming. She was prepared for it. As soon as she felt her 30’s drape around her neck like a silk shawl, she became sexually active. No, more like sexually promiscuous. Trips to all of the bars in all of the Kingdoms, all of the Cities. Even trips to the Crystal Dimension’s big soju distilleries. She didn’t see some sort of husband, or even a boyfriend, in her future, and she was sort of glad for it. She wasn’t looking forward to marrying some tranch just to bring her beautiful son into this world, and she was glad to know that they wouldn’t EVER know.

Was that callous of her? Maybe. Maybe she should’ve asked their names, so that if Gibbon ever wanted to know, he could go find them, but… what’s life without a little mystery?

Her life was going exactly the way it was prophesied. Perhaps that would be stifling to some, but she just felt comforted. Even the dark times, even the times where she was lost, or she was afraid. Those were just parts of being alive, after all, and it only made the good times better to know that they wouldn’t last forever. That she wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, she will be buried in the graveyard next to Jake, and Joshua and Margaret. Kim Kil Whan, T.V., Jake Jr, Viola. They will all become worm food, and they will all join together in the 50th Dead World, where they will become Forever.

Well, hopefully. That’s assuming they all get into that one. Well, it’s not like that’s the only good Dead World. The 33rd is pretty nice, and you can’t discount the 27th. Hell, the 49th is just as good, but, eh… you have to be naked all the time, and she’s never been into that? Maybe it’s just her, ah, maturity, but she always thought it was weird father was always naked.

Time to have some more tea.

She moves slowly through the small amount of open space in her living room, to get to her mildly flooded kitchenette. Hmm, she should really call the plumber about the leak in the sink, but she would want to CLEAN first, but… ugh. Sometimes she wonders if T.V. had the right idea at first. Living with mom would be stifling and all, but at least it was clean and you didn’t have to… oh, is that knocking?

“Coming!” She announces, and she swims back through her path to get to her front door. Opening it, she sees her father, with a… bandage attached to the top of his dome, but otherwise looking as happy and naked as ever. As well as carrying...

“Hey Charlie! Um, sorry it took so long. I swear, it’s like that dang Dungeon Train got longer! I had to go through like, 20 thousand cars or something to get this back!” He stretches his arm and drops the glass into her trembling hands, “Oh, yeah, uh… you been doing okay? With this whole, um… you know…” He shifts his belly to look rounder, “Thing?”

“Papa, it’s okay.” She can’t help but laugh at his clear discomfort, “I’m doing okay. Well, okay, I guess I kinda need to clean up around here,”

“Me and Lady could help out!” He offers gallantly, “It kinda sounds fun, ya know? Digging up the past. Combing through your years, finding the ways you’ve evolved over time. It’s kinda like a dungeon where the prize is good feels!”

“I… I dunno if good feels would be the prize in my mind dungeon…” She grimaces, thinking about that stack of thirty pizza boxes piled up in her bathroom, “I might just move out. I know Kim Kil Whan won’t let me have the security deposit, but… eh, bling ain’t really that important. What’s most important is Gibbon’s future.”

“Oh, you’ve already decided on the name? Um, there’s not a… papa, in this scenario, is there?”

“I already have one papa in my life, papa!” She laughs, “All I need is my family. At least, that’s what I think. Who’s to say Gibbon’s father isn’t some dark, cosmic entity seeking destruction of all that we hold dear? I don’t want to invite someone like that to the annual Puptogether.”

“Uh, you… well, um, okay…” He grimaces, “So, uh… just call us if you need us, okay? We’ll be over here quicker than you can say “Bxotoristerothziendarandaova’!” 

“That’s… not a word you can say quickly, papa.”

“Well yeah, it’s not like we can move faster than words!” He laughs, awkwardness fading away, “Not even Glob himself can move faster than the speed of the common tongue! Well, I’m just guessing. Maybe Glob can move faster now that he’s just a head orbiting around the planet? Anyway, I’ll let you get to your… thing.” He stares at the glass ball in her hands for a second, debating whether to ask her what she’s doing, but he just leaves instead.

Which is good, because she didn’t really want to tell him…

She knows her future. She knows everything that will happen to her. But… she’s not happy with that. Maybe it’s her greedy, pack-horse nature that’s causing it, but after learning she was pregnant, she wasn’t over the moon or anything. No, her first thought was… what Gibbon would be like. What challenges would he face? What would his love life look like? What would his family look like?

She doesn’t want to be what her father was to them, nor what Margaret was to him. This is her first and last stop on the Overprotective Parent Express.

The Tempered Glass Sphere was an ancient relic. It wasn’t around before the Great Mushroom War, but it was close. It passed through the hands of ancient and powerful people, including such luminaries as Grandmaster Wizard, who used the power of the orb to see the future home of Wizard City. Of one of the former Flame Kings, who foresaw his own death at the hands of his brother… but it was that foreknowledge that cost him his life. She was merely curious at first, always looking for new avenues of Divination, but it wasn’t like she expected to find it. So when she heard about Uncle Finn and Papa’s trip through the Dungeon Train, she… she was annoyed that they hadn’t taken it home! Though maybe if they had, they would’ve lost it to the Wildberry Kingdom… And considering how bougie that place was, she wouldn’t have enough money to eat after buying it.

Well, now, it was hers. Normally, one could only use the Sphere to see into one future; the users. The magic wasn’t strong enough on it’s own to read into the future of someone else who wasn’t holding the Sphere, let alone someone who hadn’t been born yet. But she wasn’t going to let a silly thing like that stop her.

She regularly went to Wizard City for work; as a student of Divination and a pretty good one at that, she regularly got requests from the various high ranking wizards who, despite their power with Magic, couldn’t see five minutes into the future. Well, it put pizza on her table at least. Still, whenever she went, she always made sure to stop at the various Potion shops and Alchemy workshops, buying the rarest and most powerful roots, eyes, and utensils she could.

Thus, she knew exactly how to juice up the Sphere.

Going to the only clean room in her apartment (the ritual room, obviously), she opened her drawer of shirts that, underneath, held a secret compartment of the most dangerous things she had.

“Okay, okay… See if I can do this properly,” First, she took out the biggest thing in the compartment; her marble basin of brine from Prismo’s pickles. As a wishmaster, he radiated mad Magical energy, and though she hadn’t seen him herself, she knew he was one of the most powerful beings in the known multiverse. Perfect water for the base of her spell.

Next was her tarot cards. Not her normal deck, because she’d be ruining the cards forever, and the magic of the cards wasn’t important; it was the cards themselves. They would be the foci, the compass, the highway. She only needed four cards in this ritual;

The Fool. Obviously, you start with the fool. He is the protagonist. The start of the deck. The beginning of life as we know it, and the beginning of Gibbon’s life as he knew it.

The Empress. She is the mother of the deck, and as an expecting mother herself, it’s vital that she includes herself in this reading. She may desire to see Gibbon’s future most of all, but that desire stems from HER.

Death. She will die, but her death will only mean a beginning for Gibbon; a world in which his only parental figure has left him, and it’s up to him to decide what that means.

World. To complete the journey, and the completion of life. Gibbon himself will die. It’s only natural that she include both the moment of death, and the moment of life. She wants to see a moment of his life where she isn’t there, and it’s vital that she include the start and then end of his life, to show her the halfway mark.

First, to take the four cards and dip them in the pickle juice. She needs to spread the cards out, in a pointed square. The two sets would need to be opposite of each other; Fool and World, being the beginning and end of Gibbon, and The Empress and Death, being the beginning and end for her. Then, placing the basin on the floor, she puts the Sphere gently inside the basin. To soak up those magical Wishmaster rays.

This next step, and the most prone to failure, is piercing the sphere with a copper rod. It had to be pure copper too, which was the costliest thing she had to buy; She’s just lucky her papa is a pushover and kept the pickle juice as a memento… She doesn’t even want to know how much it would cost.

Towards the corner of her room near her crystalline dreamcatcher, is her mini oven. She mostly uses it when she goes camping, because for some reason she can’t start a proper fire for the LIFE of her, but she primarily bought it to melt down metal. But this was a far more intricate process. She needed to heat it up just enough that it was pliable, while also mostly maintaining its shape. She’s tested it on silver, it being an easier pure metal to find, but silver is a softer metal. It took her 6 minutes and 32 seconds to heat the silver enough, so for copper… somewhere around 7 minutes. Setting her timer, she holds the copper over the oven, waiting.

And…

There! It’s starting to melt, but not enough. Okay, okay, for the final two steps, she needs to…

“Hyah!” She plunges the rod directly through the top of the Sphere, and it turns… Purple, yes. Perfect. Almost the purple of LSP, which is what she was predicting. Next was the easiest, and last step… Picking up her favorite ritual dagger, she makes a slice on her left palm, and then her right, holding it over the basin, letting the blood drip into the brine… and it begins to shine. Now, all she needs to do is plung-

\------ 

“It worked!” She cheers into the Void, despite her current blindness. She needs to wait for her consciousness to travel far enough to the spot she chose; exactly in the middle of Gibbon’s life. Well, hopefully.

...

This is taking forever… By her calculations, she was only expecting her blindness to last 20 seconds. She thought she was being optimistic about his prospects of a long and healthy life, but not optimistic enough, apparently. It was nearly two minutes, and she wasn’t even- oh.

Her eyes were clear now…

The first thing she noticed was how dark it was. If it wasn’t for the low level of spectral light she was radiating, she’d barely be able to see her hand in front of her face. Gibbon was here? What was he doing in here?

Walking around, she notices the walls are, well, dirt. Somewhere underground… She could also see sconces along the wall, complete with unlit torches. The sconces were designed oddly though. They were made with some kind of metal, which really clashed with the dirt walls, and they were almost too small for the length of the torches, which were probably close to three feet long.

Just then, she sees a more natural light bounce off the wall she was looking at, and she looks over to the right to see… Gibbon. Her son… He was lighting the torches.

Gibbon was… old. He looked very old. His fur was matted, he walked with some kind of cane made of crystal, and he was severely hunched over. As soon as he lit all the torches on the right side of the room, he moved to face her, and… WHAT was on his EYE?

Was that… a gemstone? It seemed extremely familiar to her, and she couldn’t place it for the life of her. His face was… really sad, too. It was just as old as his body, and the despair in his eyes made her heart ache. What kind of world was this, that her son looked so miserable?

“W-Why… do I…” He spoke, finally, and it was so full of despair and loneliness that she just wanted to hug him, but she couldn’t because, “Look up… to… you…” He was speaking song lyrics… Wasn’t that a song Marceline did on her second album? She said it was a cover, now that she thought about it…

“Father?” A voice spoke from the north, and they both turned at once to see another Pup, this one green and wearing some kind of white robe, adorned with a strange logo.

“Yes, my son?” It just occurred to her that they were speaking Korean. Odd… Were they in the crystal dimension? Wait, was that her grandchild?! 

“Walter has come, and she has brought her daughter.” The younger Pup said, “Do you wish for me to bring them down now, or…”

“Yes. Thank you.” He sounded slightly more sprightly as he spoke to the younger Pup, but she could easily tell that he was just putting on an act. Who was he putting on the act for? The Pup clearly didn’t buy it, and it wasn’t like there was anyone else in the room. Was he doing it for himself?

She didn’t want to run into him, because she didn’t know how he’d react, so she moved to the center of the room when he started lighting the side she’d been on. Looking around the room properly, there were benches on either side, like you might find at some sort of church. There was a plain, burgundy rug running through the middle between the benches, but the biggest thing she noticed… Was a basin. Looking closer, it was filled with some sort of… water. Oh, just water. It was a little bigger than her own, but it wasn’t massive; it was sat on top of a podium that was just tall enough for someone of Gibbon’s size.

As soon as he lit the last torch, two pups came down. One of them was pink, and wearing glasses, and had her hair done up in a tight bun. The other… was a small child, colored the gold of her father. She barely remembers being that small. She remembers fighting the foxes with her siblings, but not a whole lot before that… So this must be before she becomes really conscious of the world around her?

“I-It’s… good to see you, Father.” The mother Pup says, mildly awkwardly, and she doesn’t really seem glad to see him. She’s trembling, her small Pup looking worried as well. Was this her grandchild too? Or were they calling him Father in a sort of religious context? Was her son some sort of religious figure?

“My dear, are you worried? Afraid for your child?” He asks, back to his sprightly, grandfatherly tone of voice, “Because I would understand if you were.”

“I-I… I know why you do it. I really d-do… Looking at what h-happened to the Candy Kingdom, to Wizard City… I know what u-unrestrained power does to a Kingdom. If just one child has their powers, it could start some sort of awful r-r-r-rebellion… To go back to a time where people could… judge one another, for their lack of p-powers, or their look, or their s-station of birth…” She was frightened, and she couldn’t tell who she was frightened for. Was she frightened for her child? Frightened of the past?

Or was she frightened OF Gibbon?

...What was going on here?

“...But you’re still afraid of the process. Walter, if I recall correctly, your own mother was worried herself when she was down here.” He says as he limps closer to her, “In fact, the number of people who are worried probably outnumber the people who aren’t, and… Despite what you may have heard, I’m glad to hear doubt. I support those feelings. To just allow someone to alter your baby’s genetics, even someone as well-known and powerful as I, speaks ill of their character. To properly care for a child is to hold them close, even in the face of Golb themselves.”

“O-Oh… thank you.” She lets out a breath, “I… I guess I let my friends in the Fire Dukedom fill my head with all sorts of bunk…”

“Understandable. Some citizens of the Fire Dukedom still harbor ill-will towards me, and for good reason too.” He grabs her by the shoulder with his caneless hand, “What is her name, if I may ask?”

“...Danni.” She says, eventually.

“Beautiful name for a beautiful Pup.” He leads her down the rug, “Now, have you seen her powers in action yet?”

“No… Actually, I figured she was one of those without powers, at first.” She shrugs, “At least, that’s what my husband was, so I was assuming she might not have them as well. But, um, according to the doctor, she did. So I came here as soon as I could.”

“Of course. Now… Let me examine her. Just hold her out, and make sure to keep her still.” He detached from the mother, and started running his cane… which seems to also be some sort of magical staff, up and down the small Pup’s form, “Oh my… It’s a good thing you came when you did. Little Danni here would’ve had one dangerous power…”

“If… If I may ask…”

“Her horn would’ve been able to create nightmares. Horrifying, soul rending nightmares.” He shakes his head, “Not the most dangerous power I’ve seen in my lifetime, but it could still cause huge trouble in the wrong hands. May I...” As he asks, she hands him Danni, and he grabs her with the hand gripping the staff. Walter looks mildly worried for a moment, but he seems to have a firm grip of her, so she relaxes slightly.

That kinda reminds her of T.V.’s power, but a lot more malicious. But… they’re talking about getting rid of it. Before she even has a chance to, well, grow up. She could understand if the Pup was some sort of dangerous criminal causing trouble, but… She was just a Pup! Did her son have some sort of precognitive ability, like her? But… Walter sounded like she didn’t have a power either...

“Please, sit down.” He says brusquely, his grandfatherly tone disappearing, “I will need concentration.” As Walter sits down on the closest bench, still looking slightly worried, she comes closer to the basin. As she stares at the still water, she can see the reflection of Gibbon’s staff in the depths. He was searching in the podium for something… And as he got it out, she saw… Ah, some wild sleeping gate bramble, some sort of powder, and… was that a golden wire?

He laid the wire down on the edge of the bowl, half in the water and half out. After that, he gently lays the bramble on the bottom of the basin, and he presses it for a few seconds to make sure it stays at the bottom. After, he sprinkles the powder on Danni, causing her to sneeze slightly. Once that happens, he gently lays her down on the bed of bramble, and waves his staff from side to side, speaking some sort of chant as he does it.

“Estinguere… Loeschen… Kesu… Eteindre… Extinguir... Extinctus…” She couldn’t recognize the language he was speaking for any of them, but the last two she COULD recognize, very well, “Kkeuda… Extinguish.”

Extinguish. As soon as he speaks those words, in various languages, 8 times… he pulls out his mini torch, and lights the golden wire. The flame changes colors a few times, going from the normal orange, to red, and then to pink, before finally going underneath the water and onto the bramble… It bursts into pink flames, even under water. He merely stares at it, despite the fact that the Pup was still in there… the flame itself didn’t seem to be hurting her. Nor was she drowning in the water. After a minute, as the fire was beginning to dissipate, he reached into the basin and drew out Danni.

“And… she is one of us. Thank you for bringing her to me, despite your misgivings.” As Walter takes Danni from his hands, he bows, both hands gripping the staff for support. After a second, Walter bows as well.

“Thank you for allowing me those misgivings, Father.” She seemed much happier before coming in, and as she left, she could see Gibbon’s face also reflect a smile. It was hardly a smile at all… It was a fake smile filled with desp-

\------

“Ow!” She’s flung back into her physical body suddenly, and she can instantly tell why; the brine of the pickles is burning her sliced palms. She hurries to wash them off in regular water, and while she does that… she thinks about what she just saw.

She… didn’t like any of it.

She didn’t know what she was expecting. She honestly had no idea, which was the reason she did that in the first place. She wasn’t expecting him to lead a normal Kim Kil Whan or Viola sort of life, but… That? What the GLOB was that!?

Once she finishes disinfecting her palms, she glances back down at her… slightly distended belly. Once, she felt calmness looking at it. Excitement.

Now, all she feels is despair.

She’s not dumb. Is she the smartest Pup in the bunch? Not by a long shot. She can’t think her way around corners like T.V., or do long division in her head like Kim Kil Whan. She’s not as emotionally empathetic as Viola, nor as devious as Jake Jr. But… She can make some very, very educated guesses about what’s happened.

Pup Kingdom? She knows Kim Kil Whan has been talking for years about building a town of their own, and Viola’s been interested in helping for a long time. KKW has even been taking meetings with Princess Bubblegum, Wildberry Princess, Strudel Princess… Even from the Crystal Dimension Council. But as far as she knows, the plan’s always been a town. Not a Kingdom. Well, considering he’s, er, probably not in charge…

Gibbon seems to be? Some sort of religious figurehead? She doesn’t know what that means?

Plus, the Fire Dukedom? Were they taken over by the Pups? She also mentioned the Candy Kingdom and Wizard City in a slightly negative light… whatever THAT meant. Something about unlimited power.

Plus, extinguishing Pup powers? Again, she could see the use if Jake Jr. was some sort of, say, criminal mastermind. Something like that. But what did Walter do that was so bad? Or Danni? She wasn’t even a week old! Plus, if Gibbon had some sort of precognitive powers, wouldn’t he have mentioned something about that to Walter? No, it came off to her as some sort of… leveling of the playing field. Some sort of… nation-state, where the individual wasn’t as important as the state… 

But the biggest thing she took away from that… was how unhappy he looked. She wasn’t expecting him to be the happiest kid in the world or anything. Even if she caught him at his lowest point, she wanted to see something she could point to and say, ‘my boy will be alright’. Now? His haggard, depressed face burns in her brain, like the time she tried to hop to Mercury… 

She has to see someone. Someone who has more power than her, someone who can see the future with as much clarity as he can view the past and present.

Their father had told them about Prismo. Of course he did; they were the greatest of friends, and sometimes he couldn’t shut up about the damn pickles. Still. He told them about his wish granting abilities, and he photocopied a certain paper he used to go to Prismo’s Time Room. He stressed that it was only if they REALLY, REALLY needed it, and to be careful about making a wish without thinking of the possible consequences.

Consequences… She was worried about the possible consequences if she DIDN’T see him. Where was that thing… She put it… Maybe her dresser? Was it her bathroom cabinet? Was it… Oh! Right!

She rushes towards her bed and climbs on, leaning over the side to grab the piece of paper she tucked away underneath her box spring. She starts touching the various wor-

\------ 

“A-Ah!” She’s flung again, but this time her entire physical and metaphysical being were transported, and it was a lot different than when Kim Kil Whan teleported her. Almost safer, in a way, but still really strange. It’s… just as yellow as her father said…

“W-Who are… Oh, you’re, um… Charlie, right?” The pink shadow, who could only be Prismo, said after a scrutinizing glance, “I’m sorry, I’m real terrible with names sometimes.”

“Yes. I… I am Charlie.” She breathes in slowly, “I… I wanted to talk to you. I am, uh, a diviner. I guess you could say. It’s where I make most of my bread. Um… I… I needed to talk to you about a vision I saw…”

“...I don’t know that I can help you, man.” He says, “I’m not really supposed to look at the future with anyone else in the room. I can’t even do that when Cosmic Owl is here…”

“I… I saw Gibbon. Old. He was… so old.” She kneels down, stares at the blinding yellow of the floor, “He was sad. Sadder than I ever wanted to see my… My boy. I know… I know… that sadness is necessary. I do. I just… To see that level of sadness, my one glimpse into his future showing me something so heartbreaking…”

“O-Oh. Gibbon. You’re, uh, Gibbon’s mother.” He hesitates, “Uh… yeah… What did you see? I don’t know that I can show you anything else, but…”

“I saw him… in some sort of ritual room. Extinguishing the power of a tiny little Pup.” She shudders, “He was… knowledgeable. Wise. And so… so sad.”

“...Yeah… Yeah, that’s, uh… a thing. He does.” He says, with a nervous cough, “Look… I’m sympathetic to your jazz, okay? I get it. Jake’s talked about you guys, a lot. Like, alot a lot. He cares about them so much. I’ve… I have wanted to tell him what happens, but… it’s so hard, man. To tell him that one of his grandkids turns out… like Gibbon.”

“Can… Can I have a little context? Just a little more?” 

“Context won’t help.” He says with surprising directness, “Trust me, man. Some things you just don’t want to see. Do you want to see when your sun blows up, leaving the Earth a tiny, frozen speck? Do you want to see Orgalorg destroying planet after planet, killing billions in his wake? Do you want to take a look at the Great Mushroom War, and the way humans killed each other for bread crusts? You can know something’s nasty, without having to see it yourself. You saw Gibbon’s face, and you saw how sad it was. Do you really want to know how it got that bad for him?”

Doesn’t he get it? She doesn’t WANT to know. She HAS to know. She only knows half the story. If she wants to make her only wish, she has to know everything. All of the context. When she nods, he just sighs.

“That gemstone you saw on his eye? That’s keeping him alive, but it’s making him crazy. He’s fully dialed in to the Magic, Madness and Sadness cycle of destruction; you haven’t seen much of it since Betty, uh… you know what she did,” He coughs again, “But to succumb that bad? You have to be pretty dang jazzed with magic. And he is. Jazzed, that is. He stole it from Ice Thing… at some point in your near future.”

“Oh… that’s why it’s familiar.”

“Yeah. After some things happen, uh, he needs the power. So after that? He takes over, in a big way. Takes control of your brother’s city, and turns it into the Pup Kingdom. He does a bunch of tranchy things to the other kingdoms in Ooo, too. The only one that’s even close to what it is in your time is Slime Kingdom, because they gave up pretty quickly.”

“Why? Why is he so…” She wants to say sad, or mad, or something, but she can’t decide.

“Losing you had a really… really bad effect on him. He loved you more than anyone else, man.” He sighs, “Look, that’s as much as I’m telling you. You don’t need to know the rest. Besides, you won’t remember it, will you?”

“...I guess I won’t.” She laughs, but she can’t remember ever hearing a more depressed sounding laugh, “Am I that easy to read?”

“Well…” He turns on the remote and up pops her son on one of the walls, exactly where she left him, face radiating depression of the highest order, “That future is still on. The only way that makes sense is…”

“If I use my one wish to erase my memory.” She relaxes at the inevitability, “Instead of wishing for his happiness, his sanity, or anything else, I’m using my only wish on myself. Letting this horrible future happen, just because I can’t stand the memory of my only son looking so distraught. How self-centered, am I right?”

“...I guess.” Prismo doesn’t seem to want to agree, but he can’t really bring himself to argue.

Really… how pathetic is that? How pathetic is she? Shouldn’t she try and make sure she saves him? To make sure that when she dies, he doesn’t go crazy in an attempt to save her, or whatever ends up happening? But she knows. She knows that, if she continues to have that memory of Gibbon in her mind, something will happen. In her forties, she was already afraid. But if she kept that memory, she’d feel something different.

Something… far more dangerous. To both herself, and Gibbon.

And maybe, if she were braver like Finn or papa or mama or T.V. or Princess Bubblegum or whoever, maybe she would just live with the knowledge, and try her best to erase that horrible future. But she’s not brave. She’s not smart. She’s not even wise… Thinking back to that Card Wars tournament… How arrogant was she, to presume that she was wiser than Jake?

They were all born with intelligence, with knowledge, but wisdom… wisdom only comes from experience.

“For what it’s worth… I’m sorry.” Prismo offers, “I would love to help. Really. You know how much I lo- like Jake. But…”

“Prismo, it’s okay. Knowing this would devastate him.” She breathes in slowly, “As it devastated me.”

But maybe that’s okay.

Because they all die, in the end.

“I wish…”

“Goodbye, Charlie.” He smiles, “You seem cool, but this will probably be the last time we meet. Sorry it had to be so…”

“That my ritual with the Sphere didn’t work.”

“Sad… and done.”

Sorry, Gibbon.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still working on my characterization of Gibbon, and what the Pup Kingdom will look like, but I definitely think of him as some sort of religious leader. There's a ruler of the Kingdom, and it's not him, but that ruler is just the figurehead. If you think of Beth's given name, it makes some sense.
> 
> I also hope I got Charlie's motivation for her wish across. She's not a bad person at all, but to know that your only son is potentially this... evil dictator, and also mega sad? I dunno. Maybe someone like Jake or Finn, in her position, wouldn't waste their wish on that, but she's someone who was, at one point, very comforted by the future. To know that once her future ends, it will negatively impact so many innocent people, might be a little too much for her to handle. And, if she kept the knowledge of it, how would she raise Gibbon properly without waiting for him to turn evil?
> 
> As far as my future plans, well, they might involve, uh, Humantopia or whatever that place is gonna be called lol. Or an adventure to Better Reality Island with NEPTR, BMO, Banana Man, and either Jake or Finn or both.


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